


The Architecture Of Trust

by tielan



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Character Study, Developing Relationship, Dom/sub, F/M, Love, Maria is a BAMF, Sexual Content, Trust, relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-03
Updated: 2013-01-03
Packaged: 2017-11-23 11:26:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/621619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It starts when Steve finds Maria punching the living daylights out of a bag after a mission goes pear-shaped. It ends with them naked and sweaty, panting like there’s not enough air in the room.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Architecture Of Trust

**Author's Note:**

  * For [igrockspock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/igrockspock/gifts).



> This is what happens when one starts off with what should be straightforward smut and it turns into a character study through sex.

The first time is on the floor of the gym in the SHIELD safehouse. It starts when he finds Maria punching the living daylights out of a bag after a mission goes pear-shaped. It ends with them naked and sweaty, panting like there’s not enough air in the room.

Steve supposes he could’ve been more specific about the alternative release he was offering.

Her eyes are dazed and hazy as Steve props himself up on his elbows over her and thinks that sex wasn’t like this before he took the serum, but that’s probably the partner rather than his physique.

* * *

Maria doesn’t expect there’ll be a second time. The first time was an unfortunate mistake – he certainly got all careful and polite after what she’s come to think of as ‘the gym floor fuck’. An oversight to let things get that far, but too late.

Less than forty-eight hours later she finds herself leading Rogers into the bathroom, well aware of where the situation is going and figuring that he needs to unwind and so does she, so why not?

Being fucked against the wall isn’t to everyone’s taste, but Maria likes the contrast of cold tile and hot flesh.

* * *

Call Steve old-fashioned but he’d like to have sex in a bed for once. Preferably his.

Maria doesn’t quite hunch over when she arrives at the apartment with a bottle of wine, but it takes most of the bottle to relax her, and even then she pauses when he stops kissing her long enough to suggest they move to bed.

It doesn’t escape Steve’s notice that Maria prefers sex to intimacy. But she lets him close the door, undresses him as he undresses her, and allows him to go as slow as he wants.

And he wants it _very_ slow

* * *

They’re not public – Maria’s insistence – and they’re exclusive – Steve’s requirement.

They’re also very passionate, very discreet, and very intense.

Steve Rogers is an apt pupil in bed. When he puts all his drive and focus into something – specifically, into pleasing _her_ – the result is exhaustion, lassitude, and the desire to never move again. Which works out well since he’s a tactile lover: a hand on her hip, an arm around her waist, a leg thrown over hers – utterly gentle, but with the subtle tang of a physically powerful man.

Maria doesn’t analyse how much she likes his lead in bed.

* * *

Steve likes touching Maria after they’ve made love, but he finds he enjoys watching her during it.

It’s the tension that eases from her as she’s persuaded to let go, the quiver of her body before she relaxes into his hands, the way she arches when she’s astride him – the armour of her restraint being shed piece by piece until she’s riding his hips with wanton abandon.

He likes that she’s tough as nails out of bed, that Tony’s nicknamed her ‘the helicarrier hellion’. In bed, she gives way to him.

Steve doesn’t examine how much he enjoys her submission.

* * *

Sometimes Maria feels as though there’s another woman inside her – one who doesn’t feel the need to dominate, to determine, to direct. Another woman who takes over her body when she climbs into Steve Rogers’ bed, and lets him persuade her to let go, who wants to purr when he strokes her, who revels in the feel of that magnificent body stretched out over her, pinning her – piercing her – with every thrust until she shatters.

She’s never found it easy to let go in bed before this. Steve makes it very easy.

And more than anything else, that terrifies her.

* * *

“Wait for me,” Steve says at the start, thinking nothing of it. And he smooths and licks, nibbles and strokes until she’s aching, before he rolls them over and sinks deep.

Her teeth are digging into her lip, and there’s a diamond gleam beneath her lashes as her hands fist in the sheets and she whimpers with every thrust.

And Steve’s close – but he can’t – won’t – unless she comes first and tonight she’s not—it’s like she’s waiting—

Understanding fills him to bursting, like the serum transforming his body.

“Come,” he murmurs. “Come for me.”

And Maria comes for him.

* * *

She avoids Steve as much as possible after that. One week becomes two becomes three…

“I heard Carter’s set her sights on Rogers.”

“Is that wise? I mean, he was in love with her great-aunt.”

Maria keeps eating, gives no sign that she heard anything at all. It’s none of her business and it never should have been.

But her gut roils and her body aches. It didn’t occur to her that ‘ _wait for me_ ’ was anything _but_ an order until afterwards, when he watched her with possessive and satisfied eyes.

She won’t be a plaything. Not even for him.

* * *

Steve doesn’t need Stark to tell him that sleeping with one woman when he wants another is a bad idea. At least Sharon Carter takes rejection well.

He wishes he could take rejection as easily.

They’re Lieutenant Hill and Captain Rogers, and they never touched.

Then there’s a hard battle and a tight corner. He holds the shield over them while she reloads, and their thighs lie long against each other – clothed and clad but the spark’s unchanged – and their eyes meet.

“We need to talk.” It’s both promise and threat.

Maria exhales, nods. Then she’s out and shooting again.

* * *

“I don’t want us to pick up where we left off.”

It throws Maria off-kilter, cold as a shot through the heart. “What do you want, then?”

Steve’s gaze is serious, sober. “I want a relationship. Private, if that’s how you need it to be. But I won’t be your convenience.”

Maria wants to laugh. In all her life, she’s never encountered anything as inconvenient to everything she is and wants to be as Steve Rogers.

“You scare me,” she says, because he does. “I— _We_ scare me.”

“We scare me, too,” he admits. “That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.”

* * *

It’s not always easy, but they persevere.

Steve still likes the way she lets herself go in bed, Maria still likes him up against her boundaries. And Steve tries to meet her boundaries, even when it pushes him further than he likes. Dominant, yes. Dominating… It discomforts him.

She stares at the polished wooden box, unmarked, unstamped; tasteful. Her cheeks colour when she looks inside.

Five black silk ties. Two wrists, two ankles, and a blindfold – or collar. And the message inscribed inside the lid:

_That which yields is not always weak._

She doesn’t have to be strong for him.

* * *

Maria has her gun out before she remembers giving Steve the key.

“If this is a bad time—”

“Stay. Sleep.” She holds his gaze as she takes off her jacket, toes off her shoes, unbuttons her shirt, shucks her jeans. Yes, she’s tired, but this is her gift to him – her trust.

He unhooks her bra, slides off her panties, and shivers as she slides his hands to her breasts.

But, “Just sleep,” he says roughly as she eases them down into the sheets.

They fall asleep like spoons, and wake to his body half-covering hers in the dawn.

**Author's Note:**

> My original D/s plan for Maria and Steve was to have Maria as Domme – which I can still sort of see – only somewhere along the way I thought, ‘so what if Maria wants someone she can let go with in bed instead of being the boss all the time?’ And ‘what if Steve finds it difficult to relinquish control in sex because of his history of being bullied?’ And the next thing I know it’s character study through sex.


End file.
